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Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.” I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! This is a double sonnet—not just two sonnets one after the other, but two sonnets functioning as a single poem. The first line of the first is the last line of the second, and that last line of the first the first of the second. You have noticed already that I get off on structural dovetailing like that—especially when I can make it work to support the flow of the thought through the whole piece. Did I do that here? Let’s find out.

PROPOSED:

That the Modern Scientific World-View, In its Euphoria over Learning

How to do Neat Things with Matter, Has Left Something out of the Equation

There was a time when men could see the sky,

A grand cathedral vaulted and ablaze

With myriad candles lifted up on high

By nights for Vespers; in the brighter days,

The great Rose Window eastward shed its rays

For Morning Prayer, and each and every flame

Burned eloquent in litanies of praise,

In fugues and canons to extol the Name.

But now the sky, though larger, is more tame,

And modern man sees what he’s taught to see:

Vast numbers are just numbers all the same,

Though multiplied toward infinity;

And quarks and quasars cannot speak to us

Except as agitated forms of dust.

Except as agitated forms of dust,

We don’t know how to know the thing we are:

The biochemistry of love is lust

As an atomic furnace is a star,

And all that’s known is particles at war.

And yet we do know love, and yet we know

That it and lust are infinitely far

Apart. We know the stars and how they glow,

Though they know nothing of us here below.

So even while we’re slogging through the mire,

We cannot help ourselves, but as we go

We cock our heads to listen for the choir.

We know that half the truth is half a lie:

There was a time when men could see the sky.

Remember: for more poetry like this, go to https://lanternhollow.wordpress.com/store/ and order Stars Through the Clouds! Also look for Inklings of Reality and Reflections from Plato’s Cave, Williams’ newest books from Lantern Hollow Press: Evangelical essays in pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. And look for Williams’ very latest book, Deeper Magic: The Theology behind the Writings of C. S. Lewis, from Square Halo Books!

When I left Dover, I went straight to Canterbury for the next part of my journey. Canterbury is a treasure trove for the literary and historically-minded sort. Aside from the obvious (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales), Christopher Marlowe, contemporary playwright of Shakespeare’s, was born here. Thomas Becket was murdered here. Edward, the Black Prince was buried here. A Norman Castle still stands in the outskirts of the town near the Roman wall, which can still be walked along. And just to make everything even more fabulous, the town center is complete with old buildings in that fantastic Tudor style, stone paved streets, and (could we possibly forget?) the magnificent Canterbury Cathedral.

Canterbury has long been on my list of places to visit because of reading The Canterbury Tales not many years ago. Making a pilgrimage, as Chaucer’s characters did while telling their tales, struck me as a perfect homage to the writer and a fond memory for myself.

I did not anticipate that another literary pilgrim would be brought forcibly to mind by my travels. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, written a couple of centuries later, features a very different Pilgrim on a very different road. Somehow, I managed to bring the two together.

What I didn’t mention in my last post was that the entire time I was climbing cliffs and exploring a castle, I had a massive backpack to carry around with me, complete with all my belongings for the trip and my laptop (I know, it was silly, but I had my reasons for bringing it). It was tolerable for a couple hours, but soon become nearly unbearable. I would have to sit down every so often to relieve the pain in my neck and shoulders. I still enjoyed the day, but very much wished that backpack far away.

I was not able to put it down until we arrived in Canterbury on the eve of Easter Sunday. With great joy, I slipped the burden off my back and on Easter morning, I followed the bells to the cathedral and celebrated the Resurrection.

If you have ever read The Pilgrim’s Progress, you know that the most significant moment in Pilgrim’s life is when he reaches the empty cross and the empty tomb. It is then that his burden falls from his back and rolls into the tomb and he becomes Christian. I had not intended to live out that scene quite so literally (who wants to carry a burden on their back while climbing cliffs?) but when I realized that my freedom from that physical burden came together with my arrival in Canterbury precisely at Easter, and with pilgrims already on my mind, I couldn’t help thinking about that story and that scene. I felt like I had gained a slightly better understanding of that allegory. If one day with my burden had nearly been the end of me (I’m allowed to be dramatic because it was a dramatic moment), what would half a lifetime be like? And how much greater the incredible relief to be released from it?

This Easter was more profound for me than most. It was my pilgrimage and the destination was a magnificent cathedral. I could easily imagine why pilgrims for so many years would make their weary way to this place. You can see the tall towers of the cathedral rising over the city long before you reach it. The tolling of the bells draws you to its doors.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales does not dwell much on Canterbury or what happens when you actually get there. His tales wander far and wide in their topics and his characters come from every walk of life. The road to Canterbury brings them together in a common purpose and a common goal:

Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunturbury they wende…

St Martin's has been used for nearly 1500 years. I was impressed.

In April I went, like these pilgrims. I visited the martyr’s grave, though all that remains of his shrine is a candle (Henry VIII had a fit one day and had Becket’s shrine destroyed). I saw the hostel where pilgrims were put up for the night on their visits to the cathedral. I saw St Augustine’s abbey and the church he founded when he first arrived in England in 597 (where people still worship). I saw Roman walls and a Norman fortress.

I saw the cathedral.

A single candle lit for the martyr.

As far as pilgrimages go, I have no complaints about mine. I lived two stories, one old and one even older, and I celebrated Easter amidst stained glass and choir voices with my thoughts rising even higher than the vaulted ceiling above me.

This pilgrim is satisfied.

Next week: Discover my irritation to learn that a duke and duchess have taken over Mr. Darcy’s House.
For more photos: My Travel Blog